Protest at Military Funeral Update

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A radical religious group's plan to protest a Jacksonville soldier's funeral could keep the fallen soldier's family from being able to mourn privately. Last Monday, 23-year-old Spc. Isaiah Calloway was killed in Afghanistan when his Army unit was ambushed. His funeral is expected to be held on Saturday. Calloway enlisted in the Army after graduating from Englewood High School in 2003. He married his high school sweetheart Alecia, and the couple had three children. When her husband died, Alecia Calloway expected grief and pain, but she never expected to hear the discouraging words of group members from the Westboro Baptist Church. Members of the Topeka, Kan.-based church group have traveled to several other military funerals, shouting insults and carrying picket signs. The church's reverend said American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays and accepts homosexuality. "He was raised for the devil," church-member Shirley Phelps-Roper said during a phone interview. "He was fighting for a nation that has made God their No. 1 enemy."

Calloway regarded the comments as "very disrespectful." The group said they plan on coming to Jacksonville on Saturday and protesting at Calloway's funeral. "Our job is to cause America to know her abomination," Phelps-Roper said. She said the group members would sing a song with lyrics including the words, "the Army goes marching to Hell," outside of the soldier's funeral. However, Ed Laing and his group, The Patriot Guard Rider, also plan on being at the fallen soldier's service. The Patriot Guard Rider group said they will be there to block off the Westboro Church crowd. "What families should be subjected to these type of insults and ugliness?" Laing said. "We use these (American) flags to put a banner between the family and the protesters, so they don't have to see ugly sides of these people." Channel 4's Emily Pantelides reported that, for the first time, the protestors could be charged with a crime. "If you want to exercise bad manners, you are going to pay," said Rep. Stan Jordan. Jordan created and passed a new state law that states that any disturbance at a military funeral could land the disturbers in jail. "It's very, very inconsiderate to choose this forum to express another subject," Jordan said. "There's no need to come and disrupt my husband's service over some foolishness, and I don't want them there," Calloway said. When asked if a man's funeral, where people are grieving, was the right forum to protest, Phelps-Roper said, "Every forum is the right forum."